Amicus Brief: Historians of Religion, Reproduction, and the Law (Indiana MLB v. Anonymous Plaintiff 1)

March 2, 2023

After Indiana enacted S.B. 1, its near-total abortion ban, plaintiffs from several faith traditions challenged the law under Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which bars the state from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion. The State responded in part by arguing that the plaintiffs’ religious objections were insincere. A group of historians of religion, reproduction, and the law filed an amicus brief in the Indiana Court of Appeals in support of the plaintiffs.

Our brief argued that courts assessing sincerity must steer well clear of deciding religious questions, and must extend the same protection to believers from minority and non-traditional traditions, or from none, as to members of large and familiar denominations. The State’s suggestion that a sincere religious commitment to abortion access is a recent invention designed to win cases is contradicted by the historical record.

Faith communities in Indiana and across the country have long treated access to abortion and contraception as a matter of faith, and religious belief underpinned broad ecumenical support for abortion rights well before Roe v. Wade.

For more, see A Religious Right to Abortion: Legal History and Analysis and our Q&A on the Religious Right to Abortion.